| Abstract
| - A systematic experimental work for evaluating isothermality of a pilot reactor, flow regime,axial dispersion, and mass transfer gradients between the catalyst surface and the bulk fluid ina trickle-bed hydrotreating reactor is presented. Experiments were carried out at the followingoperating conditions: 5.3 MPa total pressure, 356.2 mL mL-1 hydrogen-to-oil ratio, 613−653 Kreaction temperature, and 1.0−2.5 h-1 liquid hourly space velocity. Commercial NiMo catalystand feedstock were used for hydrotreating reactions. The catalyst (2.3 mm diameter) bed wasdiluted with silicon carbide (1.4 mm diameter) with an inert-to-catalyst volume ratio of 1. Variouscriteria reported in the literature were employed for evaluating axial dispersion in liquid andgas phases. Two typical tests were employed to determine mass transfer gradients: (1) changingthe amount of catalyst loaded to the reactor and the feedstock flow rate at constant LHSV and(2) conducting experiments using different amounts of catalyst at variable LHSV.
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